


Cryotherapy

by yashkonu



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 15:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10994106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yashkonu/pseuds/yashkonu
Summary: Never enough time. There was simply never enough time.





	Cryotherapy

They were cute, Mei decided.

It wasn’t that she _thought_ they were cute. They looked like some radial cousin of a bacteriophage, infinitesimal wagon wheels with a ring of grasping spines. She wasn’t above a deep discomfort with the idea of it; a thousand of the little constructs darting about their purpose in every milliliter of her blood.

Still, she understood. They were something on the other end of the scale from her work, and no less important. Climatology, as Angela had once told her after a few drinks, was the science of making sure we as a species get our security deposit back.

Mei had asked the question begged: “Get our deposit back after what?”

Angela had orchestrated her answer with a wave of a half-empty beer bottle. “After this, Dr. Zhou. After all of this is done.”

She’d drained the bottle after that. Even back then, the bags under her eyes had been ever-present. It was easy to imagine a cold wind sweeping down from Angela’s mind, barren half-circles forming on the lee side of her eyes.

They were unsettling, Mei thought.

"They are cute little things, aren't they?"

Angela laughed, a honey-sweet sound that lifted a smile to Mei's lips.

"You would see it like that, Dr. Zhou. Once I am able to accelerate production, these will save… innumerable lives. They will do things no doctor ever has."

"You're engineering miracles, Dr. Ziegler."

Angela tilted her head, a grin spreading sideways across her lips. "Are you winding up for a pun on my name, Dr. Zhou?"

"Mei-be, mei-be not."

"Incorrigible. Simply incorrigible."

Angela rested the syringe at a steep angle against her forearm, brushed a thumb over the mosaic of warning labels, and injected herself with the prototype before Mei could even think the words "are you sure about this?"

* * *

 

Mei watched Angela die.

It wasn't even a combat mission, just a supply run to a mountaintop watchpoint, with Angela along to ensure the shipment of newly minted nanomachines survived the journey intact.

Non-combat missions with Angela were Mei's favorite sort. The thin-ice brittleness that clung to Angela in combat melted away, and she remembered how to smile and laugh and joke. It was good.

Angela was first out of the transport when it landed, a hand on her hat to keep it from flying away. She rounded the transport to the cargo hold as a pair of agents approached across the landing pad.

"There's really no rush, Angela!" Mei chuckled as she hopped out of the aircraft. "We'll be staying for a few days yet, so it's not like--!"

Mei had exactly enough time to register the glossy black shape of a shotgun leveled at Angela's back before it was too late.

A thunderclap shot sounded across the mountaintop, and Angela dropped like a stone. Silent shock crossed her face before she fell, sprawling out across bloodstained crates of food and medical supplies. She didn't even have time to scream.

Neither did Mei. The weapon swung toward her--but Jesse's tips at the range paid off, and Mei was faster. A foot-long spear of ice punched clean through the attacker's visor, and the shotgun clattered to the ground.

The second pressed a hand to his ear and opened his mouth to shout into a headset.

He didn't have time either.

"Angela!"

Mei rushed to her side and sucked a shuddering breath through her teeth at the sight of the wound.

"Angela, Angela hang in there okay? I can get the nanomachines from the…"

Mei's trailed off when she saw Angela's eyes. It was all too quick, too brutal, and now--now Mei knew she had watched her dear friend die. Mountaintop wind whipped across the landing pad, stirring ripples in a spreading pool of blood that hadn't yet had time to freeze.

A hydraulic hiss caught Mei's ears. On Angela's forearm, a massive syringe built into the bracer--one Mei had sincerely hoped was just one of Gabriel's 'decorative touches'--began to press itself down. Slowly but surely it drained, and Mei's breath caught as her friend's corpse began to stitch itself back together.

Bone re-formed, muscle re-grew, organs repaired themselves in a span of seconds--and unmarked skin spread like spilled milk to cover the wound. After five truly, deeply unsettling seconds, Angela was healed.

"... Oh, Angela. It would have worked, it was just-!" Mei fought down tears; they'd freeze, and she couldn't allow that. "It was just too _fast,_ there was just no _time._ I'm sorry, Angela. I'm so, so-!"

A whine. A rising electric whine, just at the edge of hearing, and a calm synthesized voice announced 'Clear' before Angela's body bucked with a noise like the crack of a whip.

Angela Ziegler gasped a desperate breath, her eyes wide and fearful before she fell into a fit of coughing.

"Angela!" Mei lifted her friend into her arms as quickly and carefully as she could, keeping her exposed back covered from the elements as best she could. "Angela? Can you hear me?"

Angela covered her mouth with a hand, and one last chest-quaking cough brought with it a metallic _clink._ When she opened the hand, several pellets of shot sat in her palm.

"I can hear you, Mei." Her voice rasped, and she swallowed hard. "I am… very pleased to see my resuscitation system worked."

"Resusci--mercy me, Angela, I watched you die!"

"... I know. I am sorry you had to see that." She cast a quick glance around the landing pad, her gaze falling onto the bodies of their attackers. "You protected me."

"I don't think it counts as protecting if you're already dead, Angela." Mei shuddered at the thought.

Angela's slender, neatly trimmed fingers came to rest against Mei's cheek. "It was only for a little while. I can't just die on you all."

_Only for a little while._

Mei laughed, and laughed, and laughed until she cried.

Mei watched, the first time Angela died.

* * *

 

Mei was warm, and comfortable, and very very sleepy.

This scared--as Jesse might have put it--the good god-lovin' soul out of her.

_Hypothermia. Bad. Stay awake. Sleep is death._

She could feel her breath coming slow, too slow, and poured every ounce of her willpower into forcing her eyes to open.

Mei Ling-Zhou saw an angel, and wasn't sure how to feel about that.

" _...with me, stay…_ "

The angel seemed nice. Mei wanted to stay with her, though she wasn't sure if that meant staying alive or dying. Memories bobbed to the surface of her mind, and suddenly Mei was also unsure which of those she would prefer.

" _Hold on, Dr. Zhou._ "

Oh. The angel was using her title. How courteous.

" _You may feel a--oh, who am I kidding, your extremities must be utterly numb._ "

...What?

Like fog melting off in harsh sunlight, the haze fell away from Mei's thoughts. Her vision cleared, and the angel stayed.

"... Amshla?"

Angela Ziegler frowned and tucked a stray hair behind Mei's ear. "I see your mouth is still numb. It's me, Mei. Angela. How do you feel?"

Mei took a moment to run her tongue over her parched lips, and spoke in a rasp. "I think I died."

Angela sighed and shook her head. "Not quite, and thank goodness. We got here just in time."

More memories made themselves known, now slashing in sudden flashes to the forefront of her mind. It must have shown on her face, because Angela's expression turned sorrowful.

"It… we were too late for the others, Mei. If there were anything at all I could do for them, I would do it. I'm sorry."

The news settled in with a dull sort of finality. She'd known, of course. Every single day, she'd visited, and one by one she'd seen their heart-rate monitors go flat.

"... How… long?" Mei tried to clear her throat, failed, and Angela passed her a bottle of warm water.

"Take it slow. Are you sure you want to know right now, Mei? It… may be best if you wait to catch up until you're somewhere more comfortable."

The first sip burned on its way down, but the second and third were blissful. "Please, Angela."

"... Three years. If we could have come sooner, if we'd only _known_ we would have found a way, Mei you have to believe me-!"

"Angela, Angela." Mei raised a trembling hand and pressed it to Angela's cheek. "I have never known you to do less than everything you could. I--I'll need some time, though. Three years…"

Angela nodded and wiped her eyes. "Let's get you home, Dr. Zhou."

For the whole flight back, Angela kept a hand on her. The transport was well-heated, the flight was smooth, and the droning of the engines soon lulled her to slumber.

Mei was warm, and comfortable, and dreamed of an angel.

* * *

 

It was on a quiet day, one of very few that they'd had since the recall, that Mei found Angela in her room for once. She was still hunched over her desk and working on something, but then that was par for the course.

"Angela?"

A few keystrokes later, she turned in her chair. "Ah, Mei. Are you adjusting well enough?"

Mei fidgeted. "Well enough, I guess. It's hard not to feel like a stranger everywhere I go."

"The world has changed quite a lot in the last few years. You still have us, though." She stood from her desk and clicked on an electric kettle. "And you certainly still have me."

"That certainly helps. Honestly, I don't know what I'd do without you." A shade of pink tinted her cheeks. "That's, ah, part of what I wanted to talk about, Angela."

Angela blinked in surprise, watching Mei as she prepared two cups for tea. "Is something wrong?"

Mei laughed, but the sound was nervous and strained. "I don't know yet. I have to say some things, though, and I hope you don't mind hearing them."

Angela nodded, and silently passed her a steaming mug.

"After what happened, I keep thinking about how much time was… stolen from me."

Mei laughed again, but the sound wasn't any happier this time.

"And there was never enough time, even before. Not enough for too many important things, and I'm done letting things fall through the cracks. I'm making time."

Angela took a sip of her tea and nodded encouragingly.

"I-I've always admired you, but… I think I have to admit it's more than that. To you, and to myself."

She shrugged and smiled helplessly. "I'm very fond of you, Angela. I love you, and I'm done waiting for the perfect time to say it."

Angela set down her tea. "I haven't feared death in a long time. Knowing it can simply be undone, treated just like any other condition… well, it takes the sting out somewhat, yes?"

She took Mei's tea, too, and set it beside her own.

"When we found you in that _damned_ pod… I was terrified, Mei. I'd just found you again after three years thinking you were dead! That there was any chance I might have found you only to lose you all over again was… horrifying. I seldom fear death, but in my _bones_ I feared yours."

Mei took a step closer to her and held out a hand. Angela took it.

"I suppose all this beating around the bush is just to say--I am very fond of you as well. I want you safe, I want you near, and I am glad you feel the same."

Mei's free hand came to rest against her cheek, arm and gentle. " _Mei_ I kiss you, Angela?"

Angela chuckled, even as she leaned down to meet Mei's lips. "Simply incorrigible. And yes, you Mei."

 


End file.
